More about Rainbows
Written by Kelly on February 8th, 2010When I tell people that my son has been diagnosed on the Autistic spectrum, they look at me with pity. They say, I’m so sorry, with the sadness we reserve for the dead. Conversations take on the tone of funeral dirges. I do not fault people. I am familiar with grief.
Will my son have a best friend, go to prom, obtain a college degree, live on his own, love his job, get married, become a dad?
I do not have these answers. Do any of us? I think that there are better questions.
Will my son laugh? Will he be happy? Does he love?
I love you, Momma. I love you like a volcano. You are beautiful, Momma. Your hair smells like love and sunshine. Sissy is my best friend. I want to be a pirate. Let’s be pirates, Momma? We will sail the angry seas. Yo, Ho! Yo, Ho! Can we go outside and play? I want to run. See how high I can jump? Let’s play tag, Momma? You’re it. I’m hiding. Come find me. Pick me up. Want to hear me sing my ABC’s? Spin me around, Momma. I’m gonna hug on you. I am going to wish on the stars for chocolate cake. I want to eat chocolate cake all the time. Eat cake with me, Momma. Let’s eat cake.
My son. He is. He does.
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This is beautiful. You’re standing up for all of us who are different. But then, we are all unique!
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Absolutely beautiful, and so, so true.
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I wish I could do anything as well as you do this.
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I once said that your son would be fine as long as you faced reality and dealt with, and you are.
It’s the parents who try to pretend it away or deny it or moralize it that end up sad. With very sad kids.
And that isn’t you. Yayyyy!
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I like Michael’s comment…alot.
I also think your son will be who he is intended to be…labels, no labels, prom, no prom…he’ll do fine…because he has your love and support.
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He has a good mother so I am sure that he will be all that he is meant to be. Love does magical things.
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Well. He’s got people who love him, and he’s got himself, and he’s happy. He’ll be alright, I think, whatever society chooses he is.
My cousin has severe Down’s syndrome, which is nothing like autism, true, but bear with me here. But he’s the happiest person I know. He lives in his own personal reality, and he’s so perfectly lovable, so perfectly loved, that I’ve never really worried about him. He’s fine.
Your boy will be fine.
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Elaine gave me your blog link and I am so glad she did. You do indeed write beautifully.
I have a 10 year old daughter who is autistic, but I have never grieved and never will. She is perfect.
CJ xx
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you are a fierce and loving mama, and he is a lovely boy.
it’s all going to work out beautifully.
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I am sorry, only because I know how this feels and that there is a grieving that happens… not for our children, but for our expectations for what our child’s life would be like. That has changed and we have to change with it. I still have a way to go, but for now simply loving my boy and rejoicing in him is what I can do. The future, whatever it is, will come and we’ll deal with it then.
He is my heart and nothing can touch that.
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Our children are perfect, perfectly themselves. No one really has answers to those kinds of questions- it is all a delusion, self illusion that our childrens lives follow a trajectory that is socially determined and that some are more acceptable than others. I pray for the same things- happiness,love, a place in the world that feels comfortable and safe- for my daughter. Is there more than that really?
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Yes, lets eat cake. Brilliant, beautiful boy. He is going to soar.
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I am a Cub Scout leader. And in our pack of thirteen 8 – 12 year-old-boys, we have: three kids with ADHD (one of them is my son, by the way), 2 with Asperger’s, 1 with dyslexia, 1 with a degenerative bone disorder, another with life-threatening food allergies… yet what’s interesting to me is that the “mean” kid, the one that bullies the others and doesn’t seem quite happy in his own skin, doesn’t wear any label at all.
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Whew. My heart just exploded and leaked out my eyelids.
Thank you for this.
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I have a son who is pretty severely autistic. He laughs, he is happy, and he loves. He also communicates, in his way, those things and others. But he will never have a best friend, prom date, college degree, job, wife, or children. Just as horrible for me, as someone who, like you, loves words, he may never really read or write. He is 9. And it is very sad. Sad for him mostly, but also sad for the people who care about him. Of course we all still love him and love who he is, autism included, but there is no sugar-coating a disability like that. No sugar-coating a diagnosis of autism either. I know you know what I mean and that is why I wanted to say it to you. I can’t hope to make you feel better about it, but I thought I might make you feel a little less alone.
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Have you listened to this NPR show?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123383699
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I understand. We worry about our boy, as well. Funny thing is, he isn’t worried at all.
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My kids both have sensory issues — they’ve grown out of some of them, most of them, but there have been so many times when they saw things and/or experienced things differently than the other kids around them. I’ve learned so much from them.
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I love emily’s comment. I feel that way reading your blog very often.
Your son has you and your husband and his sister and with that many people who love him, how can he go wrong? His heart will be carried through life with a fierce love surrounding it and he will be fine. I just know it.
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Gorgeous!
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You love, he loves.
Did you watch the Temple Grandin biopic on HBO last week? Awesome.
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This right here is another reason you’re on my blogroll.
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Sometimes you make my heart so full it feels like it’s breaking and I have to remind myself that no, it isn’t, this is just what love is.